Previously published:
Date: Saturday, August 5, 2006
Venue: American Airlines Arena - Miami, FL (Live Nation)
Gross: $1,074,620
Attendance/Capacity of Building: 13,156 / 13,156
Sellout %: 100%
Ticket Price Range: $129.50 - $19.50

Date: Monday, August 7, 2006
Venue: St. Pete's Times Forum - Tampa, FL (Live Nation)
Gross: $714,455
Attendance/Capacity of Building: 13,354 / 13,542
Sellout %: 98.6%
Ticket Price Range: $125.00 - $19.50

Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Venue: Philips Arena - Atlanta, GA (Live Nation)
Gross: $660,595
Attendance/Capacity of Building: 11,226 / 13,288
Sellout %: 84.5%
Ticket Price Range: $129.00 - $19.50

Total Gross: $3,429,372
Source: Billboard - Mariah Daily
Posted on August the 30th.

The chart beauty was preparing to greet 20,000 fans in Madison Square Garden last Wednesday when a special envoy arrived, dispatched by Prince Azim, the son of the Sultan of Brunei, who's worth £25billion. 

"We were sent by private jet to deliver this gift," a representative of the 24-yearold, who's third in line to the Sultanate, announced - as he presented an eight-carat flawless diamond and platinum necklace and matching ring.

It sure beats a bunch of wilting roses from a garage forecourt! 

Overjoyed by the gift, the singer, who has sold more than 100 million records, channelled her pleasure into a fabulous show. 

Her amazing set featured 18 hits and guest appearances from rap moguls Diddy and Jay-Z, who was so impressed by the diva's glassshattering vocals that he bowed down to Mariah on stage. 

Highlights included Fly Like A Bird, featuring a full gospel choir, and Dream Lover, which was dedicated to rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard who died following a drugs overdose in 2004. 

Fan Jake Wheelan from New Jersey, told us: "I came to see Madonna a few weeks ago and paid $360 (£190) for my ticket. 

"Here, I've got the best seats for less than half the price - and the show's 100 times more fun." 

The generous superstar was so thrilled to be back in her home city she splashed out £30,000 on Cristal champagne for her family and friends - including 3am - at an exclusive aftershow bash. More than 150 revellers, including her brother Morgan and former opera singer mum Patricia, helped Mariah celebrate her triumph. 

Sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio wine - "Champagne's bad for my voice so I can't have any on tour. Make sure you have some, though!" 

- Mariah told us she's sleeping for 15 hours a day in a humidification chamber. 

It is to ensure her eight-octave voice can survive the rigours of her Adventures Of Mimi tour. 

Breaking doctor's orders to speak exclusively to us as we partied till 4am at New York's 77 bar, she said: "I sleep in a room full of humidifiers and am on total voice rest between shows - I'm not even supposed to speak.

"It's very hard but this tour means a lot to me and I want everyone who comes to have an amazing time." 

Reflecting on her astonishing comeback - her Emancipation Of Mimi album was the biggest-selling record of 2005, just three years after she was paid £15million to quit Virgin Records - she said: "Before I go on stage I try not to think about the dark times or it can all get too much. 

"I know I'm blessed and I'm grateful to every person that stuck by me." 

She went on: "I wish I could take this tour to the UK - I love that place, but the timing just didn't work. 
"I've got to start filming a movie called Tennessee later this year, then I start work on a new album.
"The UK fans are some of my favourites, though, and I want to get back there as soon as I can." You and us both, Mimi! 
Source: 3AM (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 30th.

The pop diva gave a show that lasted just 75 minutes and, more unbelievably, she was off stage for about 15 of those minutes. And this for an event with a top ticket price of $150 and "cheap" seats going for $90.

It's a shame, too, because it was quite the spectacle while it lasted. Although I can't claim to be a big fan of the singer, I was interested in checking out a big-time pop concert where I wouldn't leave wondering whether the singer was actually singing.

When she was on stage, Carey delivered a nice run-through of songs from her latest multi-platinum album, The Emancipation of Mimi, and a few of her older hits.

Obviously, a lot of money was spent on the stage, which, dare I say it, glittered. There also was a full band and a handful of dancers with her and a large screen so she could sing along to the videos of the hip-hop stars (Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, etc.) that appeared on her songs. The concert itself was great fun and Carey almost had me forgetting the traffic nightmares on the way to the casino and the fact that the show started a half-hour late. I even thought her giving the spotlight to singer Trey Lorenz for three songs was just a minor annoyance. But the major annoyance was yet to come.

After she performed "We Belong Together," she said her goodbyes to the crowd and left the stage to get ready for an encore that would send everybody home feeling thoroughly entertained.

It was an encore that would not happen.

There was a feeling of confusion throughout the arena when the house lights went up. Could that really have been the end of the concert? Did I really pay $150 for that?

Again, the answers were "Yes" and "Yes."

It's just too bad that Carey decided to shortchange her audience in this way. It took what was shaping up to be a perfectly fine evening and left her fans feeling a bit cheated.

What a rotten thing to do.

The set list
It's Like That/Heartbreaker/Dreamlover/Shake It Off/Stay the Night/I'll Be There/Fantasy/Don't Forget About Us/Always Be My Baby/Honey/I Wish You Knew/Hero/We Belong Together 
Source: Connecticut Post (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 29th.

It wasn't the people at the gaming tables or those in front of the blinking slot machines, but everyone sitting in the arena for Mariah Carey's concert. 

Oh, where does one begin? How about she was a half hour late coming to the stage? Or that she did three costume changes in a matter of minutes? Or maybe that her deejay played more songs than she performed. 

No, I think you really want to know that many of Ms. Carey's fans shelled out $150, that's ONE HUNDRED FIFTY smackers, for a show that lasted barely an hour. Don't believe it? Here's how it went down: 

8:34 p.m., the curtain comes up and the audience is treated to a two-minute video about how Ms. Carey's life is similar to a roller coaster. She performs "It's Like That," "Heartbreaker," and "Dream Lover," the last with a hot Biggie Smalls remix to "Juicy" before she leaves the stage. While she's gone, no music is played and the audience just sits and waits.

Ms. Carey returns wearing the same outfit, but has added a pair of dark shades to the ensemble. What was the point in leaving? One more song, and then she leaves again. 

Her deejay plays nine or 10 old school cuts, then she returns and performs two more songs, including a duet with Trey Lorenz. 

Then, by this time I could barely contain myself, Ms. Carey had the audacity to leave the stage. Again. 

Lorenz takes over and performs three songs. Ms. Carey returns to perform four more songs, then there's another deejay interlude. The Diva reemerges to sing the last verse and chorus of "How I Love You, Baby" along with "Hero" and "We Belong Together." At 9:45 p.m., the chorus of "Butterfly" comes on, Ms. Carey tells the crowd how much she loves us and exits. She should have just rolled her eyes, snapped her fingers and said, "Don't even think about asking me to sing another song!" Then, we really couldn't have been mad at her because she warned us. 

But she didn't. Not only did her backup singers and band walk off the stage, but the house lights came on. 

No chance for an encore or for the fans to chant or shout her name. All you saw were mouths hanging open and heads shaking in disbelief. A sampling of the exit polls: 

"I spent $300," said the couple sitting behind us. "I could have lost that on the table, brother." 

"We came for Mary J. Blige. She did two hours and barely left the stage," said another lady. 

Ms. Carey, you did a disservice to your fans. The next time you think about coming back to the Constitution State, think about the sour taste you left in our mouths. Everyone in that audience deserves a refund. And you owe Connecticut an apology.
Source: The Day - Brad - Mariah Daily
Posted on August the 28th.

She had the crowd on her side (they quickly turned), a major production (dancers, singers, live band, and a half dozen video screens) and the goodwill that comes with successfully executing a viable "comeback." 
Things looked bleak for Carey at the turn of the century when she split with music executive Tommy Mottola, flamed out in an attempted movie career with the laughable "Glitter," and was dumped by Virgin Records. Her recent "The Emancipation of Mimi" release has put her back on the charts. The corresponding "Adventures of Mimi" tour could return her to punch line land. 
What's longer than a Mariah Carey concert? Just about anything. 
The show started with Carey narrating a video about her "rollercoaster" life before the curtains opened to reveal Carey in revealing short shorts and bikini top singing "It's Like That." 
Rapper Jay-Z joined in via video screen during "Heartbreaker" and Carey carefully walked down a grand staircase to the bottom half of the multi-tiered stage to sing "Dreamlover." 
There were a couple of diva-like moments, particularly when Carey admonished a crew member between songs. 
"Get that light off me you dummy," she said, before remembering her microphone was operable. "Oops, just kidding." 
After a strong cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," sung as a duet with backup singer Trey Lorenz, Carey left the stage to let Lorenz solo for three songs. 
While the performances, two covers of Luther Vandross and a reprisal of the current Gnarls Barkley hit "Crazy," were entertaining, giving a backup singer eight minutes in the middle of a show is just a bad idea. 
Carey returned in one of the five costumes she donned for the event, and worked through hits like "Hero," "Fantasy," and "Honey." She closed the show with "We Belong Together" and did not return for an encore. 
Source: The Republican (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 28th.

Heroes of Mariah bientôt en français aussi!
Suite à une forte demande, Heroes of Mariah aura une section de nouvelles en français pour bien sûr tous les francophones du monde, je vais essayer de faire de mon mieux pour vous traduire l'essentiel des nouvelles mondiales et vous donner les 
nouvelles relatives aux pays francophones.  Alors que vous soyez Belges francophones, Français, Canadiens francophones, Suisses francophones, enfin tous les fans parlant français, ceci sera pour vous.
Apparemment mon style vous plait, alors on n'y changera rien.  Immense tendresse pour Mariah, un support inconditionnel, de l'humour et des coups de gueule, ça vous va?  Rendez-vous bientôt 
Posted on August the 27th.

Anderson and her fiance, 32-year-old Tony Neve of Nashua, were treated to Carey’s concert at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston on Monday night. Right after Carey finished performing, Carey herself handed the keys to the new wheels to Anderson.
When the Danvers, Mass., Ira Mazda dealership offered to buy the car back, Anderson, a labor and delivery nurse at the Elliott Hospital in Manchester, happily accepted. She is using a portion of the $18,500 check to cover her wedding expenses.
The big day is Sept. 30. She and Neve are tying the knot in Scarborough, Maine.
“It felt like a gift,” said Anderson. “It took off a lot of stress from my family, because my family always wanted to give me a dream wedding.”

Meeting Mariah Carey was a bonus.
“I’m not a super-huge fan, I don’t have any of her CDs or anything . . . but it was pretty surreal,” Anderson said.
Carey gave both Anderson and Neve hugs before posing for photos.
“She was bigger and taller than I thought she would be,” Anderson said.
During the picture-taking, Anderson said Carey kept running over to look at the digital camera to see how the snapshots came out.
“She didn’t like a couple of the pictures, so she had us erase stuff,” Anderson said. “She straightened out my hair and fixed Tony’s collar and made sure we looked OK.”
Anderson had a ball meeting the diva, as did her fiance.
“He asked her for a second hug on the way out,” she said.
Source: Nashua Telegraph (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 26th.

Mariah is very laid-back, and talks to her audience as if they are sitting next to her at a table in a restaurant. Some people think that's too casual an approach. But . . . yes, the fans love her intimate chatting. She is a sweet girl, who had a rough childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, including a tempestuous marriage to Tommy Mottola. Her stardom and those fans mean everything to her, and it's obvious in every breath she takes. 
Source: Liz Smith for the New York Post (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 25th.

Welcome to a night in the life of Mariah Carey. 

The voluptuous singer - who, despite being a hometown girl, rarely plays the city - spun a greatest-hits set for fans at the Garden Wednesday night that featured soaring vocals, questionable fashion decisions and a little help from her rap mogul friends - Jay-Z and Sean Combs. 

Besides her abilities to overcome personal adversity and hit glass-breaking notes so high only bats and dogs can hear her, Carey has the skill to make people smile. 

No, really. 

One just had to look at the fans sitting nearby. All had this non-New York goofy grin that made them appear as if they just got to go to Camp Mariah for vacation. 

It wasn't just the women in the house, many of whom have actually benefited from Carey's long-established summer camp program for girls, or the guys who ogled the singer's boudoir booty display. Stone-faced Jay-Z, a guy who only shows his teeth to clench a Cuban, was grinning the biggest, dopiest schoolboy smile as he worked an early-show duet of "Heartbreaker" with Carey. 

At the close of the tune, the rapper, who bows to no one, kowtowed to Carey with outstretched arms and a crooked smile - their chemistry was terrific. 

Minus the terrific chemistry, much the same could be said of Combs, who ran out of the wings to join Carey in the final throes of her hit "Honey." Combs popped a few "yo yos," gave a shout-out to the greater metropolitan area, folded his arms and eyeballed Carey over the tops of his shades. 

Carey was thrilled that he joined her, but he added little to the performance beyond the puffiness of his ego. 

Part of the charm of Carey's show was the general looseness of the concert. The two-level stage looked used, as if it had been picked up cheap in the Czech Republic. The between-song DJ-ing lent the affair the air of a bad bridge and tunnel club. Carey even had to stop the show at one point because a clergyman she invited to do the spoken-word part of "Fly Like a Bird" missed his cue and had to be found backstage and ushered into the spotlight. 

But M.C.'s deal isn't about cheesy sets, weird fashion or even celebrity guest stars. It's about the voice. And for the first five songs, including her duet with Jay-Z, Carey didn't blow anyone away. 

Where she finally found her groove was when she reprised her first No. 1 single, "Vision of Love." She warbled through the lows and used all of her five octaves to reach the song's summit. 

Who knew the word "love" could be stretched and contorted into an opus unto itself? She managed to repeat that performance passion during her late show rendition of "Hero." 

At 36, Carey seems to be very comfortable in her own skin. She was relaxed throughout her 20-song set, which featured a good but not great cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." Other fan favorites included "Fantasy," "Don't Forget About Me" and "Always Be My Baby," which Carey performed from a secondary stage set up on the floor at the center of the Garden. 

Carey did make a mistake by giving up a chunk of the middle of her set to backup singer Trey Lorenz. Despite his ability to carry a tune, Lorenz was unable to command the audience, and his mid-show mini-set just put sand in the concert's gears. 

Still, this was a very successful, fan-pleasing concert that made you wonder why Carey doesn't play her hometown more often.
Source: New York Post (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 25th.

For instance: "Sometimes life can be kind of like a roller coaster." And, from time to time we all get "a moment of peace." Also, our lives are "part of God's bigger plan." And finally, inevitably, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

At the time it seemed as if Ms. Carey was talking about the ups and downs or her life and career. Her recent years in the music-industry wilderness are by now a big part of the Myth of Mariah, even though in retrospect they don’t seem all that dire. "Glitter," the movie and the album, were absolute bombs, but the semi-successful follow-up album, "Charmbracelet," was pretty good, and it demonstrated that there would probably always be a million or so people willing to buy a pretty-good Mariah Carey album. Still, it was last year's "Emancipation of Mimi" (Island Def Jam) that really put her back on top, and she's clearly relieved. During Wednesday's concert two of the most effusive dedications went to L. A. Reid and Doug Morris, the executives who helped make "Mimi" last year's best-selling CD.

How could we have known, at the beginning of a totally entertaining and slightly weird night, that Ms. Carey's clichés would come true, right there onstage? The show included a few guest appearances (Jay-Z and Da Brat during "Heartbreaker"; Diddy during "Honey"), lots of ovations and all the costume changes you'd expect. But it also gave Ms. Carey a chance to demonstrate her singular talent for embellishment, vocal and otherwise. Give her a molehill, she'll make you a mountain. Give her a chance for a concert that should be a victory lap, she'll make it feel more like - yes - a roller coaster. There were plenty of not-quite-life-threatening ordeals that must have made Ms. Carey stronger.

She chided DJ Clue, who had his own podium next to her band, when she mentioned his name and he didn't respond with an appreciative scratch or shout-out. She saw an expression she didn't like on the ever-smiling face of Trey Lorenz, her duet partner (for the Jackson 5 hit "I'll Be There"), and wondered aloud whether he was in a bad mood. And before nearly every song, she fretted about the dire threat of throat-parchedness; luckily, her water bottle was usually in exactly the right place.

Her concert, like the great "Mimi" album, emphasized club jams over ballads. Early on, a show-stopping rendition of "My All" came back to life as a thumping house track. And she often emphasized the extremes of her vocal range: the smoky low notes and the smoke-alarmy high ones.

Throughout, she betrayed a charming anxiety about pleasing the crowd. After "Vision of Love," the song that made her a star, she said, "At first I wasn't doing my first single, 'cause I was like, I don't know if people want to hear it, or whatever." And before "Don't Forget About Us," she said, "Thank you for making this my 17th No. 1 single." But who's counting?

In recognition of the importance of following God's plan, perhaps, she sang "Make It Happen," a bombastic disco-gospel inspirational that compresses many of her tendencies into a four-minute song. And she tried her best to stick to the plan during "Fly Like a Bird," which was supposed to begin with a few words from a pastor. Ahem. Pastor? For a few tense, strange minutes he was nowhere to be found.

"I'm not trying to be a diva," Ms. Carey said, adding, ominously, "We went over this." Eventually he showed up: another crisis averted.

Near the end, Ms. Carey sang "Hero," and she dedicated it to a friend whose father had recently died. She seemed to tear up, so she made a request: "If you want, sing along with me."

In true Mariah Carey style, she sang that request instead of saying it. And in even truer Mariah Carey style, she added some further instructions: "Just for the first part. So I can get it together."

And the crowd followed her instructions to the letter. Surely that qualifies as a moment of peace.
Source: The New York Times (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 25th.

To say that Mariah Carey has gone through some hard times is an understatement: She spent the late 1990s and the first half of this decade dodging rumors of suicide attempts and mental breakdowns. On top of that, she suffered from mediocre record sales and the seeming lack of a good fashion stylist. She giggled and rambled during live public appearances, and in an episode of MTV's "Cribs," she spent an hour touring her New York penthouse, changing outfits for every scene, dunking herself in a tub of bubbles, and hopping on a fitness machine in plastic high-heels. In short, she didn't seem together. At all. But the public's memory is fickle, and those tough times made it easy to forget that in the 1990s Ms. Carey had broken nearly every important musical record for a solo female artist.

Her self-titled debut album, released in 1990, landed four no. 1 singles, including the legendary ballad "Vision of Love." Ms. Carey balanced balladry and adult contemporary pop with a deft hand at songwriting and a five-octave voice that she could manipulate into any mood she wanted. Her next effort, 1993's "Music Box," was a perfect example of the balance she could achieve.The singles "Dreamlover" and "Hero" were complete opposites: "Hero" was an indulgent, Josh Grobanesque ballad full of sentimental, heartwarming proclamations, while "Dreamlover" was a sexy come hither pop song. Until 1997, Ms. Carey kept up her success, showcasing her maturing songwriting and production skills on singles like "Fantasy" and "Always Be My Baby."

"Butterfly," from 1997, was Ms. Carey's hip-hop breakthrough: Although the first single from that album, "Honey," produced by P. Diddy, was smart and succinct, her early relationship with hip-hop was ultimately rocky. The albums "Rainbow," "Glitter," and "Charmbracelet" were forgettable. Ms. Carey needed help musically and personally. Her call for rescue was clouded by her continually weird antics, and the debacle of signing the biggest record contract ever — $80 million with Virgin Records — only to be dumped by the label after one release.

It was easy to think, early in this decade, that Ms. Carey wouldn't bounce back — in fact, it was probably easier to think that the singer and her ballads were dead and gone, relegated to the video cycle on VH1 Classic, than to imagine her gathering the energy to make another comeback. But this is a singer-songwriter who was the first female artist to debut at no. 1 on the singles charts. Not even Whitney Houston did that. And she did it her own way. On the song "Fantasy" she used a Tom Tom Club sample. Now, she could have gone mainstream and used a Talking Heads sample, but instead she went obscure — and she hit gold. Why couldn't she bounce back with pay dirt?

With last year's "The Emancipation of Mimi," she did just that. The songwriting skills of the hip-hop extraordinaire Jermaine Dupri helped Ms. Carey hold her own for the first time in her hip-hop career.Like other vocalists, such as Mary J. Blige, Ms. Carey used Mr. Dupri's uncomplicated lyrics to her vocal advantage, carrying songs like "We Belong Together" to emotional arcs without going overboard. Remixes of "Shake It Off" and "It's Like That" appeared on multiple mix tapes, further legitimizing her return.

Unsurprisingly, this comeback was accompanied by doubts about whether or not she would succeed, as well as by even more than usual criticisms of her appearance. Sure, her dresses are a little too short sometimes, but "Mimi" proved that despite such slip ups, her musical abilities are still as strong as ever.

As she swings through the East Coast on her current tour (appearing at Jones Beach during Labor Day weekend), fans can step back and appreciate the struggles that Ms. Carey went through to get to where she is now. Wearing a black bandeau on stage is probably not the best idea for an outdoor concert, but as long as she can belt out "Vision of Love" and "We Belong Together" in the same set, she is still a musical force to be reckoned with.

August 27 at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., and September 3 at the Nikon Jones Beach Theater.
Source: The New York Sun (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 25th.

At the start of last night's concert at Madison Square Garden, she showed a video of a rollercoaster, and discussed the "ups and downs" and "twists and turns" of her life, concluding: "It's all part of God's bigger plan for me" and that "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." 

The show had all the ingredients for a triumphant homecoming. Carey's voice was as strong as ever, and she hit her famous high notes with ease. The house was full, and - reflecting the turn toward hip-hop Carey took with "The Emancipation of Mimi" -- rappers Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Da Brat and Jadakiss made surprise guest appearances. (Other rappers, including the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, "collaborated" with Carey via video.) 

Still, it felt like something was missing. 

Carey doesn't present an overwhelming visual spectacle like Madonna or Janet Jackson. And while there were some exciting musical moments -- usually at a song's climax, where her voice explored a sonic stratosphere her contemporaries simply can't reach -- she often seemed to be going through the motions between them. And the show had too many breaks in the action (dance interludes, DJ mini-sets) to gather much momentum. 

The evening peaked with "Fly Like a Bird," where the presence of a 40-member gospel choir seemed to pump Carey up. This number also had an awkward moment, though, when a pastor who was supposed to deliver a spoken intro didn't show up, and Carey, clearly annoyed, had to stop the song and wait until he could be found. 

"This is not staged," said Carey, who also mused, "Maybe he didn't like a first outfit." She had worn a black bikini, under a sheer cape, with stiletto heels, at the start of the show, though at this point, she had changed into a more modest gown. 

Another highlight was the pop confection "Fantasy," performed on a small stage in the middle of the arena. The moody, understated "My All" was a nice break from Carey's usual bombast, though she repeatedly returned to surging power ballads, including "Hero" and "We Belong Together." 

Jay-Z made his appearance early on, rapping on "Heartbreaker," but the crowd cheered so heartily it was almost impossible to hear him. As Carey sang, he graciously bowed and waved his arms, as if to say, "We are not worthy." 

P. Diddy showed up later in the show, taking the stage for part of "Honey," but didn't do any actual rapping. 

Trey Lorenz, who sang with Mariah on her 1992 cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" and is in Carey's current band as a backing vocalist, stepped out front to help her with this song. He also accompanied her later in the show, on a medley of hits, and performed his own medley during one of her costume changes. 

Lorenz, who announced that his next album will be called "Mimi Presents Trey Lorenz," pointed out that Carey's '95 hit "One Sweet Day" still holds the record for most weeks at No. 1, while Carey herself, earlier in the show, had identified "Don't Forget About Us" as her 17th No. 1 hit. This was something that divas really shouldn't do: remind people how mind-bogglingly popular they are. 

It seemed as if Carey, despite her success, is still experiencing some nagging insecurity. That's the thing about rollercoasters: there are moments of calms, but you always have to brace for the jolts to come. 
Source: The Star-Ledger (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 24th.

Those emulating their favorite star can injure their voices if they force hitting those shrill notes, or even low ones below what comes comfortably, experts advise. Aspiring artists should develop their own, individual sound and skills, they say. People aren't just born with powerful voices and the ability to sing regularly and comfortably in whistle range, the highest register of the human voice, as Carey can.

Carey boldly promotes her instrument in the title of her current, 40-city world sojourn, "The Adventures of Mimi: The Voice, The Hits, The Tour," which makes its only Connecticut stop Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Some credit genetics, even destiny, in Carey's fairy tale-like rise to fame. Born to an opera singer mother who named her for Lerner and Loewe's 1951 Broadway song, "They Call the Wind Mariah," Carey later wed, and divorced, Sony Music President Tommy Motolla.

True singing stars like Carey, vocal coaches say, get their chops from a blend of training and their innately pleasing and distinct voices.

Carey's deep, sultry, low notes and seemingly superhuman high-end wailing may seem effortless, but her voice has been cultivated over years -- beginning with coaching from her mother growing up.

"It's just like an athlete. Were you born able to run the 500-meter dash?" said Marianna Vagnini, a Naugatuck voice instructor who has traveled as a professional soprano and will begin teaching students at Waterbury Arts Magnet School this year. "When Mariah Carey came out, she didn't sound like anyone else, which is what made her."

Echoed Richard Gard, a composer, musician, teacher, producer and conductor who oversees the music department at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury: "It helps what you're born with. I'd say more than a good voice, you might be born with a distinctive voice."

Both Gard and Vagnini tutor students to find their own voices, rather than emulating Mariah's, Sinatra's -- or anyone else's for that matter.

Once a singer has found his or her own sound, proper training can expand performers' abilities to span the scale. But not quite to the seven-octave range Carey's publicity handlers have said she can achieve. Several vocal coaches have expressed doubt over the supposed seven-octave voice.

"You'd have to be about 10 feet tall to have that range," said Gard, explaining the capacity for seven octaves as close to a grand piano's capability, from bottom of the keyboard to top. He called a three-octave range both huge and rare. 

A Web site that aims to debunk urban legends even has addressed this topic, with the snopes.com entry granting Carey perhaps six octaves. Others are not as generous, estimating Carey's range at anywhere between three and five octaves.

Other artists who have been said to possess extraordinary range in excess of three octaves include Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, whose Web site claims her as at least once capable of five octaves, and Julie Andrews, whose voice has been categorized by sources as in the four- to five-octave range.

"The human voice is a miraculous instrument," said Vagnini, adding that whatever Carey's range, she ranks undeniably among those with voices that impress. "She definitely raised the bar in what people expect to hear in a pop singer. She's certainly a bright light in pop history."
Source: Republican-American (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 24th.

The poor crew lighting guy got his ass handed to him by Mariah (unwarranted though). Mariah stopped Fly Like A Bird b/c the lighting guy didn't put the spot light on the Pastor. However, it turned out that the Pastor was actually lost somewhere back stage. Mariah was LIVID...stating how they went over this and it was supposed to be a special moment! Then someone politely came up to Mariah and informed her that the Pastor was missing. Mariah replied, ohhh...maybe he didn't like my first outfit, CUTE!!! 

Although, she demanded they go find the Pastor...'give me a time when you will have him out here'...'I need to know how long'...'In MINUTES'....Mariah definitely had a DIVA MOMENT!! After several minutes the Pastor was found and the show went on.
Source: kaboyz
Posted on August the 24th.

In her usual style, Carey approached each song as a rigorous exercise, bending and stretching notes extravagantly, elaborating each melody with as many ornate phrases and fancy filigrees as she could conceive. 

Essentially, Carey was doing with her voice what Madonna does with her body. 

Carey meant such moves to make up for the fact that, unlike most modern divas, she doesn't dance. She doesn't even move with much grace. But at least she poses with a certain campy charm.

Long attuned to modern trends, Carey made sure that last night's show wasn't just about music. She had a passel of backup dancers to shimmy and shake, a deejay to fiddle around between numbers, and enough costume changes to fill a segment on "Project Runway."

Unfortunately, such distractions often wound up harming the show's pace. Seldom did Carey perform more than two or three numbers before vanishing backstage, while DJ Clue, or some video backdrop, carried the day.

The deejay motif carried over into the songs. Perhaps nervous about her age (36), Carey put even more youthful hip-hop inflections into her music at this show than on her CDs. 

Both Jay-Z and Sean (Diddy) Combs showed up as guests. But the style wasn't always flattering, often slowing the beat and flattening Carey's already narrow melodies. Songs like the opener, "It's Like That," made such severe concessions to the beat, there wasn't much room left for the tune.

By contrast, Carey's vocals certainly showed range. The woman can hit most any note on the scale. The deeper question is, should she.

On hit after hit (from "Dreamlover" to "Honey"), Carey threw her voice around with the giddy abandon of a crazed seal leaping through hoops.

It's a supremely influential approach. "American Idol" would be unimaginable without it. But for all her physical dynamism, Carey in concert generated no heat.
Source: New York Daily News (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 24th.

Even by Carey's standards, her outfit was revealing: black, bikini-style lingerie wrapped in a sheer, billowing cape and high heels to match. Carey has been promising spectacle on this tour, and she obviously meant to deliver.

The concert marked the first of three area dates for Carey (she's scheduled to play Continental Airlines Arena Sunday and Jones Beach on Sept. 3). It also helped mark a new phase in her career. Once a soft pop singer, Carey has become a full-fledged hip-hop artist.

Carey has long dabbled in R&B and soul, and on past albums she's enlisted the help of Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and others from the hip-hop world. But "The Emancipation of Mimi" (Island), featuring production by Jermaine Dupri, The Neptunes and others, is a whole new ball game. Carey sings in rap-inflected cadences, serves as her own breathy chorus crooner and proves she knows how to ride a bass-heavy dance track.

It's no accident that Carey chose another crossover hip-hop artist, the Jamaican dance hall singer Sean Paul, for her opening act. Paul showed up with a live band and ran through a 40-minute set that touched on pretty much all of his hits, from the lilting "I'm Still in Love" to the hard-hitting "Temperature," from his new album "The Trinity." He's not much of a performer, but the strength of his material was all that seemed to matter to the crowd.

Like a true hip-hopper, Carey called in more than a few favors for this show, bringing out Da Brat, Trey Lorenz and Diddy to assist her on songs. Power 105's DJ Clue manned the decks. The biggest surprise of the night was Jay-Z, who showed up to sashay his way through "Heartbreaker." As Carey hit her famous high notes, Jay-Z stretched out his arms and bowed repeatedly.

The second-biggest surprise was who almost didn't show up. After changing into a floor-length gown, Carey brought out a choir from the True Worship Church of East New York to perform on "Fly Like a Bird," but stopped the song short when the Rev. Clarence Keaton failed to walk on stage and deliver a mini-sermon. "I'm not trying to be a diva, but we went over this," Carey called out to her crew. "He's not here? Maybe he didn't like my first outfit."

Carey may not be emancipated from temper tantrums, but with "Mimi" she's found an appealing new way to express herself. 
Source: Newsday (All rights reserved)
Heroes note: "He's not here? Maybe he didn't like my first outfit." 
Posted on August the 24th.

In a voiceover accompanying the onscreen rollercoaster ride, Carey described the ups and downs that have defined her 15-year career-record-breaking hits and massive popularity, massively huge missteps (think "Glitter") and hideaways from the public at large.
But Carey didn’t become the best-selling female artist of all time by accident. And if her latest album, the multi-platinum monster "Emancipation of Mimi," wasn’t proof enough that she’s back at the top of her game, then Monday night’s two-hour set was.

The newly svelte songstress appeared onstage clad in a fuschia bikini and sheer black pseudo-cape to the tune of "It’s Like That," a hip hop-flavored number that signaled her rise from the ashes in 2005.

Video appearances by hip hop icons throughout the performance hinted at Carey’s crossover appeal, with Jay-Z mugging onscreen during "Heartbreaker," the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard rap-growling on "Fantasy" and Mase getting face time on the heavy funk of "Honey."

As good as those songs were, Carey was at her best during slow to midtempo ballads like "Don’t Forget About Us," the gospel-tinged "Fly Like a Bird" and "Always Be My Baby," her first song with hitmaker Jermaine Dupri.
Fans who had recently jumped on the Mimi bandwagon-and judging by the age of the audience, there were many-were unfamiliar with the inspirational "Make It Happen," not to mention her first single, "Vision of Love."

Thankfully everyone knew the words to the Jackson 5 classic, "I'll Be There" featuring Carey’s protégé Trey Lorenz, who hung around to perform a tribute to the late Luther Vandross during one of Carey’s four wardrobe changes.

Those wardrobe changes, along with backup dancers, a live backing band, and a winding staircase onstage, certainly didn’t hurt the ambiance Monday night.

But it was The Voice, five octaves of glass-shattering power, that carried the show, never better than on Carey’s final song, "We Belong Together."

Tearing up the ballad in a skin-tight gold gown and stiletto heels, Carey proved she remains one of few female performers with sex appeal and a set of pipes to match.
Source: The Sun Chronicle (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 23rd.

The crowd of mostly teen girls was warmed up by the sexy voice and suggestive moves of Sean Paul, who performed a string of his hits, beginning with "Like Glue." Along with his four backup dancers, he brought enough energy to the stage to have everyone out of their seats during his entire 45-minute set. 

After a long 75-minute intermission, the curtains -- adorned with the initials "MC" in pink glitter -- opened to reveal a stage fit for a queen: Mariah had arrived.

Beginning with her hit "It's Like That," Carey announced her mission for the night -- "I came to have a party" -- and the crowd's deafening screams showed they were ready for just that. Decked out in skimpy purple-glitter booty shorts and crop top, Carey hit those infamous high notes and delighted the crowd with their favorite songs, old and new. 

The elegant two-level stage came complete with four video screens, a star-filled backdrop with a disco beaded curtain and was topped off with "MC" right in the center. It was a perfect fit for the diva who has poise and confidence, as Carey clearly did. 

There was a sweet moment when Carey slowed it down and sang the ballad "My All" as she stood on the stairs in a single spotlight. Shadows of a couple dancing behind a screen set the mood for this older hit, as fans sang along with the song about wishing for one more moment with the one you love. 

With a quick change back to the upbeat "Shake It Off," lights spelling "Mimi" came down onto the stage. Carey danced in front of them, teasing the audience with a moment of pole-dancing. 

She took it way back with her first single from 1990, "Vision of Love" and told the audience that second show of her career was in Boston and was the best of her life. She chatted with fans as if they were all good friends and even took a moment to sing "Happy Birthday" to a male fan in the audience. 

Carey made a number of diva-style wardrobe changes into sexy-yet-elegant dresses that still didn't stint on glitter. Midway through the show, she moved to a smaller stage in the middle of floor and the audience went wild with the chance to get a better view of their idol. 

As the show drew to a close, Carey dedicated "Hero" to anyone who has been through any tough situation and had the audience singing along and waving their hands in the air. For an upbeat ending, a full gospel choir in white robes joined Mariah and her dancers on stage for "Make It Happen." 

Carey then graced the stage in a skin-colored, full-length dress for the encore song, "We Belong Together." As she said good night to Boston and walked off the stage to "Butterfly," glitter cannons exploded sending pink and purple butterfly shaped glitter over the audience -- a graceful ending for a diva-licious evening. 
Source: Lowell Sun (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 23rd.

He racks up hit singles the way UPS drivers collect parking tickets. Jamming through dancehall hits such as “We Be Burnin’ ” and “Get It On,” Paul energized people who came to hear him as well as Carey die-hards waiting patiently for their hero. 
 Carey’s intro was hysterically dramatic. She emerged to a recording of her waxing poetic about how life is like a roller coaster. When her fans finished wiping their tears, they braced for the show. 
In a salute to rappers who have laid verses on her most popular tracks, Carey paid homage to MCs she’s collaborated with.During “Heartbreaker,” Jay-Z cameos filled the video monitors, and for “Fantasy,” deceased rap star Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s verse was given a full salute. 

But Carey’s catalog is even more impressive than her vocals and the MCs who have complemented her choruses. For every dance track she flung in the beginning of her set, she unfurled a “Vision of Love” or “Hero.” Her fame might have briefly faded from 2000 to 2003, but Carey’s vocal chords never left the building. 
 No track triggered more tears and screams than “Always Be My Baby,” a song Carey let her fans sing most of. Halfway ballads such as “Honey” inspired tears, but it took her hit “Hero” to trigger the night’s most significant emotions. 

There are rumors about how Carey resents her fans and how she disrespects the backroom talents who engineer her career. But at a venue as mammoth as the Garden, none of that seemed relevant so long as she reigned over the crowd as expected.
Source: Boston Herald (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 22nd.

Whether it was the offhand, almost unconscious, rapping along with video of duet partners like Jay-Z and the late ODB, the teasing of her band and dancers, or the singing of a sincere ``Happy Birthday" to a devoted sign-waving fan, Carey was at her most likable when she seemed to be enjoying herself as opposed to counting in her head how many hip shimmies she had to do during ``Shake it Off."

Of course those hip shimmies ( Carey's and those of her considerably more rhythmically gifted sextet of dancers), the peek-a-boo costumes, the mammoth silver-and-white stage dotted with a quintet of video screens, and the big hair were all part of the spectacle one expects. And the singer worked the stage with as much grace as a scantily clad woman in towering heels can.

The pageantry was a bit silly at times, including the requisite intro video of Carey comparing her life to a roller coaster and then falling through the clouds. Trey Lorenz made an ``entrance" to huge cheers for Carey's lovely cover of the Jackson 5's ``I'll Be There," but he had been on stage all night as part of her trio of backing vocalists. (A medley by the genial Lorenz meant to promote his forthcoming album somewhat defeated the purpose by consisting solely of covers of Luther Vandross and Gnarls Barkley, but presented an excellent restroom break for many in the crowd.)

The generous set list drew on her collection of 17 number one hits, with emphasis on her more recent rhythm and blues successes. Mariah and the crowd, 12,232 strong, followed every impressive trill, belt, and canine whistle with rapt devotion and vigorous sing-alongs.

She hit her breakthrough anthem ``Vision of Love" early and strong, summoning up a gospel grit that felt earned and would recur on songs like ``Fly Like a Bird," the raucous, choir-assisted set-closer ``Make it Happen," and, during a medley, an earthy duet of ``Thank God I Found You" with Lorenz. That one particular felt like a glimpse at what takes place on the tour bus, two friends harmonizing with easy joy.

The more calculated balladry of ``Hero" and up-tempo, breezy numbers like ``Heartbreaker," ``Fantasy" -- sung on a B-stage near the back of the arena -- and ``Honey" lacked that same grit, but the former drew a fervent ovation and the latter trio got the hips moving and the crowd jumping. ``We Belong Together " ended the show in a spurt of hitching dance grooves and glittery purple confetti.
Source: Boston Globe (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 22nd.

It was in good shape last night, but it's one thing to have such a force of nature; it's another to know what to do with it. And I'm not talking about the oversinging she's so often accused of; that's her deal, and if you can't get used to that, well, this deep into her career you've given it a fair shot. (It only grated on the encore, "We Belong Together.") She's still head-and-shoulders above the generation of American Idol doofuses trying to follow in her footsteps.

But on the hip-hop-influenced material that's come to dominate her recorded output, such as the set opener "It's Like That," "Heartbreaker" (with video rap cameo from Jay-Z) and "Fantasy" (with video rap cameo from Ol' Dirty Bastard), she fell victim to the Van Halen syndrome -- imitating one's imitators and undermining one's own strengths -- sounding like any one of a number of thin-voiced contemporary R&B divas, with a couple of the trademark Carey helium notes thrown in so you know whom you're dealing with, but to not much other discernible effect.

The Voice was used to better effect on opulent R&B such as the old hit "Dreamlover" and "Fly Like a Bird" and "I Wish You Knew" (from last year's The Emancipation of Mimi album), when she wasn't singing like she had something to prove, which unfortunately isn't nearly as often as you'd think it would be at this stage of her career. This is the stuff very few singers Carey's age or younger are doing, because very few can handle it. But there wasn't enough last night, and too many forgettable recent hits.

The pacing of the show was a bit of a mess. The middle of the set was loaded with filler, including a DJ spotlight and a three-song set from "I'll Be There" vocal partner Trey Lorenz. The end of the show was bogged down with another DJ spotlight, snippets of songs such as "I Wish You Knew" and forced banter from Carey before finishing up with "Hero" and "Make It Happen."

When The Emancipation of Mimi came out last year, more than a few people wondered exactly what it was she claimed to be emancipated from. Similarly, the introductory video to last night's concert featured footage of a roller coaster with a voiceover from Carey about how life was like, well, a roller coaster. Ups and downs, hold on, that sort of thing.

That was pretty much it for the philosophizing, and while that may have been just as well, most of the material seemed to come from a mindset most commonly expressed in the margins of a notebook during third-period algebra: Look inside you and be strong. I'm gonna shake you off. Baby, don't forget about us. Make it happen.

Which is a shame. At this point, with her raw talent, Carey should be leading, not following. Sure, Emancipation was last year's top seller. But last night's show didn't leave the impression of a young singer baring her soul or an older singer baring her scars. Or much of anything. Except The Voice.
Source: Providence Journal (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 22nd.

Along with her nutritionist, Carey has reportedly created a diet plan that includes eating purple foods three times a week. That’s right. And before you start scratching your head and wondering how on earth eating purple foods can help you lose weight, you should know, that weight loss is not the goal of this particular diet. Instead, Carey is munching on the likes of grapes and plums in the hopes that they will help to prevent signs of aging. But don’t roll your eyes just yet. According to research, this purple food diet may just be the smartest one Mariah Carey has ever tried.

In fact, according to Dr. James Joseph, Chief of the Neuroscience Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center for Aging, purple and blue hued foods actually do contain anti-aging properties, though he prefers the use of a different term. “We call it healthy aging,” he explained. This same line of thinking extends far beyond blue and purple foods and includes any fruit or vegetable that is bright in color. So what is behind this anti-wrinkle cure?
Click here to read the entire article and you'll know how to avoid wrinkles
Source: Black Voices (All rights reserved) (extract)
Posted on August the 21st.

Her biggest, most doting fans queued up all night, so there were layers of fans 20 deep surrounding the Miami Arena hysterical with anticipation for the opening night of Mariah's Adventures of Mimi: The Voice, the Hits, the Tour. 

Its been at least three years since most of the world saw MC perform live, so her fans came from far and wide – literally from all over the globe – and were on their feet all night. 

Since Miami she's been on a steady roll around the US killing the audiences at every venue. Even when MC was around an hour late the fans were jumping up and down not caring. 

The crowd was made up of every kind of person from every walk of life; kids, road boys, mums with toddlers, old folks, pregnant women, hip hop heads. You name it, everyone showed up. 

After Busta Rhymes and Sean Paul warmed up the crowd for her on different dates, the crowd was so hyped they did Mexican waves the size of which a European fan like me has never witnessed. 

When you go to an MC gig you're going as much for her sexy, provocative outfits as you are to hear her legendary vocals. On this show they both blow you away. There were enough clothes changes for a whole London Fashion Week. 

But that didn't matter because as she ran off to slip into another saucy outfit, the girls giggled with delight at each new one while some of the boys got very hot and flustered watching her naughty looks. Her more than able backing singers and dancers entertained us with their unsurpassed skills. MC's dancers led by the wonderful choreographer Rachel McIntosh flipped and shimmied for all they were worth and had us whining around in our seats trying to imitate them (unsuccessfully). 

MC's mate DJ Clue spun and mixed for all he was worth as MC stopped for mini breaks to change or catch her breath or take sips of water, which she felt she needed to apologise for. Why I don't know. Girl, we know you can’t belt out those melodic tunes on pipes that are dry like the desert! 

Randy Jackson, Mariah's musical director (and always has been, but in US is famous for his judging role of American Idol) was on hand to ensure MC's music was on point all through the show. 

There were loads of musical high points during the show which showcased MC's vocal ability, and occasionally it seemed she would shatter with the hollering that was escaping her lithe body. 

MC had her friends/featured artists on her hits, such as Busta, Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard join her via the technology of video clips onstage but it was director Spike Lee who swung it on home with a series of video clips highlighting the crap from the media and haters that MC always has to contend with – while MC just smiles as it plays. 

A diva wouldn't be a diva without the long, 007-style gowns and MC's were put together by stylist June Ambrose who called in hot looks from every designer who wanted to dress MC. Ultimately, however, the clothes were made as one-offs. The outfits were untouchable and while the press may have just showed the public shots of MC in batty rider shorts, let me reassure you that the gowns and sexy dresses were much more dominant in this show than hot pants. 

She not only managed to run on and off stage in a variety of outfits but her singing was complete with all the vigorous stamina you'd expect from her. This is one singer who actually sounds just as amazing, if not better, live.

MC recreated the Lady Marmalade vibe with her perfectly natural curves in a metallic red burlesque costume as she straddled and worked a chair so hard it practically melted under her, and rolled through hit after hit as the night sped past. 

If older fans were worried she would only bang out the old tracks they were pleasantly surprised as she worked in every hit including Dream Lover, Honey, My All, Shake It Off, Fly Like A Bird, Fantasy (during which she ventured into the crowd), Thank God I Found You, Hero and her cover of The Jackson 5's I'll Be There. 

We can only pray that after its US and Asian run it will finally make its way to Europe. You know if you want it you gotta demand it readers. Holla at MC on her site now. 

Finally congratulations to Damon Dash’s wifey and my pal Rachel Roy who was given the award for Outstanding Contribution to American Fashion by Iman this past month at the Bollywood Fashion Awards. It was her first accolade. Big up sista!
Source: The Voice (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 21st.

For such a hugely popular artist, Mariah Carey sometimes seems awfully unpopular.

The Greenlawn native boasts the bestselling album of 2005, "The Emancipation of Mimi" (Island), and she'll be playing to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden Wednesday. But ticket sales have been somewhat soft for other shows on Carey's current tour, one of her biggest yet with an initial 31-date schedule. Already, she has canceled an additional date at the Garden plus three arena dates in Denver, Seattle and Hershey, Pa. As of last week, fans could still get lower-level seats at New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena for Carey's Aug. 27 show. (Carey has added dates in Canada and at Jones Beach, and at least six shows have sold out according to Live Nation, the Los Angeles-based company handling the tour.)

Does this mean Carey's career is in trouble? Hardly. But it's a good example of how even the world's biggest pop stars must carefully navigate the choppy waters of the music industry. Since releasing her self-titled debut album in 1990, Carey, 36, has enjoyed envious success and embarrassing failures, at times almost simultaneously. Yet the singer with the glass-shattering voice and a prima donna reputation always manages to come out on top.

"She's known for demanding what she wants," says S. Tia Brown, associate editor at the celebrity magazine In Touch Weekly. "No one can argue that she hasn't matured into a smart businesswoman."

Carey's track record as a live act is only part of her overall picture. Generally, her tours have been infrequent - one every few years - and limited to a handful of dates in big cities. Carey played just five shows on her first tour, in 1993 (with "American Idol" host Randy Jackson on bass) and she didn't tour again until 1998, when she booked only four dates, according to the concert-industry publication Pollstar, based in Fresno, Calif.

By the time Carey embarked on a more ambitious 28-date tour in 2003, she had long neglected many of the country's "fly-over" cities. Initial plans for an arena tour, including stops at Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum, were scrapped in favor of smaller, theater-sized venues. Even then, only 10 dates sold out, according to Pollstar. One show, at the 15,800-seat Woodlands pavilion near Houston, ended up less than half-full. And in Portland, Ore., Carey sold just 1,437 tickets at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall - about 53 percent of capacity.

"She doesn't have the established audience of people who have seen her before and are anxious to see her again," Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni says. "You can play New York and Chicago over and over again and have a great following there. But whether that'll translate to other markets is another question."

There's also the question of what Carey brings to the stage. Though famous for her vocal acrobatics and sheer lung power, "she's not known for giving a particularly entertaining live show," says Brown of In Touch Weekly. "She's not a physical entertainer like Madonna or Janet Jackson. You're entertained by her voice."

Let's elaborate some more

Carey may be trying to change that. Her 2003 tour seemed geared toward the eyes as well as the ears, with plenty of costume changes, fanciful stage sets, faux paparazzi and a troupe of dancers. The current tour is being touted as the "most elaborate concert production of Mariah's career," according to a press release from Island. (The label declined to comment.)

Carey is facing a tough concert season, says Alex Hodges, executive vice president for House of Blues Concerts in Los Angeles. The summer tour business is down about 10 percent over last year, he notes, and Carey's sales may be affected by some of the big-name, high-priced tours that have already come though. "Madonna has taken a lot of the money out of the marketplace," he says.

She will survive

Still, Carey has survived far worse than slow ticket sales. In July 2001 she was hospitalized for "extreme exhaustion" after behaving oddly during public appearances (including one at the Roosevelt Field Mall, where she reportedly railed incoherently against Howard Stern). That same year, her semi-autobiographical film, "Glitter," performed so poorly at the box office - it earned just more than $4 million - that it became a punch line for late-night television hosts. Carey's label at the time, Virgin, soon took the remarkable step of paying her to leave, shelling out $28 million.

Carey's album sales began shrinking slightly. The 2002 disc "Charmbracelet" went platinum, but her earlier discs tended to go multiplatinum. That's likely because Carey was moving away from soft pop and toward a more R&B-inflected sound, says Geoff Mayfield, charts editor at Billboard magazine. It seemed like a misstep, but Carey might have been ahead of her time.

"In today's climate, R&B and hip-hop is extremely popular, and it's one of the primary ingredients you hear when you listen to Top 40 stations," Mayfield says. "That wasn't the case in the late '90s or the early part of this decade."

The success of "The Emancipation of Mimi" is partly because of its now-popular hip-hop flavor, with tracks featuring Snoop Dogg, Nelly and Jermaine Dupri. But Mayfield says the two-year gap between albums also helped.

"She kind of needed to go away and let the audience breathe, let herself breathe creatively," Mayfield says. "The best advice for trying to make a turnaround would be difficult for someone who's accustomed to being in the limelight, and that's: 'Go away.'"

Dampening Carey's comeback was her treatment at February's Grammys. She was nominated for eight and took home three, but they were lesser awards that weren't televised. The major prizes - such as album, record and song of the year - went to others. Carey lost best female pop vocal performance to Kelly Clarkson.

Was this another defeat for Carey? The week after the awards ceremony, "Mimi" jumped seven spots up the Billboard chart, from No. 14 to No. 7, and went on to sell 5.7 million copies. For anyone following Carey's turbulent career, it was further proof that her clouds always have a silver lining.

BY THE NUMBERS

How does Mariah Carey's career add up? Let us count the ways:
1990: Year Carey's self- titled debut was released on Columbia Records

1993: Year of Carey's wedding to Sony Music president Tommy Mottola

23: Her age at the time of the wedding

43: His age at the time

$80 million: Estimated worth of Carey's contract with Virgin Records in 2001

$28 million: Amount Virgin Records reportedly paid Carey to leave in 2002

$22 million: Production budget for Carey's movie "Glitter"

$4.2 million: Domestic ticket sales for "Glitter"

28: Dates on Carey's 2003 tour

10: Sold-out dates on that tour

1,841: Tickets sold at the 4,278-seat "Fabulous" Fox Theatre in St. Louis, the lowest turnout on that tour

3: Grammys Carey won in February

5.7 million: Copies sold of Carey's latest disc, "The Emancipation of Mimi"

1: That album's rank on 2005's best-selling list

Sources: Box officemojo.com, Pollstar, Nielsen SoundScan

WHEN & WHERE

Mariah Carey plays a sold-out show 8 p.m. Wednesday at Madison Square Garden; Sunday, Aug. 27, at Continental Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., tickets are $17.50-$150; and Sept. 3 at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, tickets are $29.50-$157.50. Call Ticketmaster at 631-888-9000 or visit ticketmaster.com. Sean Paul opens all shows.
Source: Newsday (All rights reserved)
Heroes comment: "What's wrong with Mariah Carey?" nothing.... it's just US people don't get it and are way too erratic, switching from an artist to the other, like Pink said once: Other countries are not like the US, once they love you, they love you forever....
Posted on August the 19th.

Carey performed the first of two shows on Thursday at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, her first appearance here in almost three years. She's back at the Taj tonight.

The vocalist's attire drew immediate attention. Carey, 36, arrived on stage to sing her first song, “It's Like That,” in what looked like a black bra, short shorts and a black, see-through cover-up.

Carey's fans love to see her strutting and posing in clothes that cling to her body as if holding on for dear life, but as she closes in on middle age, some may wonder how much longer she'll have those curves to show off.

Even though Carey employs three backup singers, two female and one male, and she can duplicate the vocals from her records in a live setting, not everybody appreciates the bird-like sound she makes when she takes her voice to the top of her range.
For someone known for her vocals, Carey sings no songs in an acoustic setting. Synthesizers and backup singers join her even on ballads.
Carey, the biggest-selling female performer of the 1990s, also wanted the audience to know that people talking behind her back comes as no surprise or shock to her.

A video segment during the show features a handful of women in a ladies room. They say bad things about Carey, like how she thinks she owns the greatest legs in the world, and how they heard she allegedly underwent cosmetic surgery, etc. In the video, Carey emerges from a bathroom stall. She says hello to the women, and they say hello back. Each side pretends that Carey didn't hear what the women said. When Carey leaves the ladies' room, the women mock-sing one of her songs.

Carey's fans can say this video segment shows the down-to-Earth qualities of Carey, how she knows women gossip about her.

The singer's critics can argue that during a 95-minute show this just demonstrates Carey's insecurities. An attractive woman, a five-time Grammy winner, and a multi-millionaire, who transformed herself from someone unknown into one of the most famous vocalists in pop music, why should she care what people say about her?

Carey modified her show to fit the 5,000-seat Mark G. Etess Arena. She usually performs in arenas with 10,000 seats or more. She typically leaves the stage, walks through the crowd, and sings songs from a second stage in the back of the room, but she didn't do that here.

The vocalist's admirers should like this show. Carey sings her biggest hits from her comeback CD, “The Emancipation of Mimi,” including “We Belong Together,” “Shake It Off” and “Don't Forget About Us” and many of her No. 1 pop hits, including “Vision of Love,” “Fantasy,” “Always Be My Baby,” “Honey” and “Hero.” A DJ played old-school and new hip-hop hits to keep the crowd pumped during her several outfit changes. Five video screens provided a great view of the stage to everyone in the arena.

For people thinking of seeing Carey for the first time out of curiosity, this tour may not show off her skills to best effect.

At the end of the night, nonbelievers may feel like they ate at McDonald's for 90 minutes. It was enjoyable while you were doing it, but in retrospect, you could have spent your time better doing something else.
Source: Press of Atlantic City (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 19th.

Carey showed off that body at the opening of the North American leg of her tour that comes to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.

At Miami's American Airlines Arena, she was swathed in artfully cut out chiffon gowns and sequined hot pants that Ann-Margret would have enjoyed in her prime and used a burlesque dancer's straight-back chair, a winding staircase and other props to prove that she could move those long legs and that curvy torso.

But Carey never let choreography get in the way of what her body was there for: to help her sing in ways that have, as she said with a modest shrug near the end of the 90-minute-plus concert, "changed people's lives."

No one works as hard to balance inspiration and flash as Carey, who started her career selling the ageless appeal of pure vocal prowess only to sustain it by turning herself into a trend-savvy hip-hop home girl.

This new production seeks to meld the uplifting Mariah and the modish one by surrounding a traditional prima donna's turn with the accouterments of urban music.

There were acrobatic dancers; video clips of rappers with whom Carey has collaborated, such as Jay-Z and the late ODB, and references to milestones in her transformation from girl next door to hot mama, including the sailor suits of her 1997 video for "Honey" and the video catfights of her "Heartbreaker" era .

From the moment she entered in a black bikini with boy-cut bottom and a chiffon cape, offering up her trademark high notes and striking poses with her masked male dancers, Carey treated the evening like a qualifying round that she was determined to win.

It's an old showbiz trick to interrupt major production numbers with asides that humanize the goings-on, and whether that or basic nerves motivated Carey's asides, it worked: When she did stumble, as on the unusually challenging mix of big dance moves and rapid-fire vocalizing during the reggae-inflected "Shake It Off," it made the show feel alive, not unprofessional.

Especially satisfying were the duets Carey shared with backing vocalist Trey Lorenz; when these longtime singing partners traded high notes on the ballads "I'll Be There" and "One Sweet Day."

Carey was happiest simply singing and, in doing so, allowing her fans to consider their own perhaps unemancipated potential. It's a function singers have served at least since the coloratura came into style in opera — the female voice carries the listener beyond the humdrum of her daily imaginings.

When Carey moved to a small stage mid-arena, she got the crowd climbing on seats to cheer her holding one last note on the poignant "Don't Forget About Us" until it seemed like she would break.

She never broke. Like the silver-screen queens she admires, Carey's not just a femme fatale but also a trooper, and her years of delivering hits, even with a midcareer dip, have resulted in hard-won consistency.
Source: The Journal News (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 18th.

What I will do is talk about how with all the mediocracy in R&B over the past few years it is refreshing to witness true talent genius first hand. Yes Mariah loves short skirts and showing tons of cleavage. Yes she is narcissistic. But witness that vocal ability live and you wouldn't have it any other way. Hands down, that bitch can sing! She can get breathy and inflate notes and in less than a second within the same syllable deflate them and deliver a clarity thats like water. Not only that, she understands the technical aspects of music. Her conversation is as much about rainbows and butterflies as it is about chord progression and singing in lower registers when she is hoarse.

What I also always knew but found important to mention is Mariah is all about her fans. In a game where you become insanely wealthy and people worship the ground you walk on, its great to not see it go to one's head. As much as Mariah loves herself that narcissism stands second to her love of her fans.

The music industry has become such a 'performance culture'. Background dancers and props and fans and such. Lately her televised performances have been inconsistent. (re: last year's BET AWARDS) but what I noticed is when Mariah is 'performing' she sounds a little strained... but when she isn't paying attention to the cameras that 5 octave massive voice falls out of her mouth effortlessly. No shake, no scratching, no reaching for notes that aren't there. 
Source: SOHH
Posted on August the 18th.

I will say this, however: you'd think after all these years of dressing like a drag queen the woman would have learned to walk in heels. Her hour-and-a-half show was nerve-racking as she minced precariously across the stage. 

It was obviously a practical rather than diva-like move to stop two lines into Vision Of Love so as to draw attention to a stiletto heel-sized hole in the stage. She was glad to have an excuse to start the song again, admitting she missed the first line anyway. 

Despite the massive production of her Adventures Of Mimi tour – lights, dancers, singers, band, video screens and constant wind blowing across the stage and through Carey's hair – the whole business was a bit awkward and strange. Yeah, Carey is the queen of the vocals. She's got a fantastic, amazing voice as she showcased again and again running through her, what – 17, 18 – number one hits, pulling out the high-pitched vocal gymnastics wherever required and sending the gay guy next to me into squealing fits. 

But Carey herself is awkward and strange, which is actually part of her charm. She's cute and quirky, keeping up chatter with the audience, insisting she doesn't want us to think she "didn't want to put on a good show." 

She often seemed dwarfed by the trappings of her stage show and her band. The show lost momentum whenever she disappeared for one of many costume changes while a DJ played medleys of party tunes. 

Her duet with Trey Lorenz, I'll Be There, was lovely but then we lost momentum again when she left for another costume change and Lorenz sang a tune off his upcoming album (Mimi Presents Trey Lorenz). He has a fine voice but it wasn't big enough for the venue and he should have taken off the sunglasses. 

Finally, launching into Hero, Mariah suggested anyone who didn't like the song could take a bathroom break (I don't know if she was being facetious or seriously insecure). When the end came it came with a burst of purple confetti.
Source: Now Magazine (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 17th.

The show opened with a confessional video of sorts. Over the image of a rollercoaster, Carey told the sold-out crowd, "Obviously it's no secret my life has been like a rollercoaster ride" æ a reductive reference to her tumultuous career in the public spotlight, which has included a high-profile divorce from Tommy Mottola and a bizarre nervous breakdown and subsequent hospitalization in 2001. "It's all part of God's bigger plan for me," she concluded, before suddenly appearing in a gust of wind from beneath the stage, clad in a sequined black bikini top, matching booty shorts and sheer cape. 
Launching into "It's Like That," she remained easy to spot among the tangle of back-up dancers, thanks in part to an omnipresent wind machine that violently tossed her gigantic, curly hair wherever she went. Carey doesn't really dance so much as swoop, flow and float around the stage. But a Mariah Carey show isn't about slick dance moves, it's all about her voice. All five of her octaves were in top form, dazzling the crowd with several ad-libbed arias. 

Peril was nearly averted during mid-set track "Vision Of Love." "Stop the show," she commanded, apologizing profusely. "There's a hole in the stage just about the size of a stiletto heel." As a roadie scrambled onstage to plug the hazardous hole, Carey coyly confessed she'd flubbed the first line of the song anyway and continued on. 
She hit every high note during a rousing version of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," and brought out Trey Lorenz, the vocalist who originally performed the song with her back in 1992 on MTV Unplugged. The show then ground to a halt as she disappeared backstage to change outfits, leaving Lorenz to perform a filler song from his forthcoming album. He naturally gravitated towards an over-eager group of girls conveniently seated in the front row who had red and white pompoms and a placard that read, "I love Trey!" 
Carey reappeared on a smaller stage at the centre of the audience to energetically perform three numbers. It was definitely the high point of the evening, as the show began to lose some momentum shortly thereafter. 

Following another costume change, she returned in a turquoise evening gown and stopped the show once again, passive aggressively reprimanding the band for playing the wrong song in the wrong key. The crowd fell awkwardly silent. Clearly distracted, she pointed into the audience and said: "That ain't a video camera, is it? I've got slick eyes," and began rambling about a "Keith Sweat remix." 
To turn the silence back into raucous screaming, she performed an impromptu few bars of a song only hardcore fans would recognize and brought Lorenz back to join her for a few bars of "One Sweet Day" and a full version of "Thank God I Found You." 
With the 11 p.m. curfew fast approaching, Carey rounded out the set with "Hero," "Make It Happen" and an encore of "We Belong Together." 

It wasn't a perfect show, but then Mariah doesn't pretend to be perfect, that's part of her charm. She turned the awkward moments around, hit all the high notes and kept the wind machine cranked up to 11. Who could ask for more?
Source: ChartAttack (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 14th.

"I didn't want Toronto to think I didn't want to put on a good show," she said of her confessions, which came at the tour's fifth outing last night at the Air Canada Centre.
It helped that the New York native made these admissions clad in a butter yellow, low cut, bare back, midriff baring gown and then delivered a standout version of 1990's "Vision of Love" — the first of her 17 No. 1 singles.
And to the reassurance of those holding tickets for Carey's Aug. 29 return date, as last night's sold-out crowd can attest, the pop songstress remains in the fine five-octave form that made last year's The Emancipation of Mimi a three-Grammy winner that moved 10 million copies — besting rapper 50 Cent for the year's top seller.

The concert began with video footage of a roller-coaster ride with a Carey voiceover that alluded to the ups and down that marred her personal and professional life for the first half of this decade: divorce from then-Sony boss Tommy Mottola, starring in the movie musical Glitter which tanked, being released from Virgin Records and erratic public behaviour that was widely documented and labelled a meltdown.
With the taped announcement, "after all the hysteria everything is up," Carey stepped out in a glittery black bikini top, matching boy shorts and a transparent cape, singing "It's Like That." Backed by an elaborate stage, six dancers and a seven-piece band, she performed many of her hits, including "Heartbreaker," "Dream Lover" and "Fantasy."
She was joined by erstwhile R&B crooner Trey Lorenz, with whom she'd recorded the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" for a pleasing rendition of the song. Unfortunately, she then conceded the stage to him to showcase a song from his forthcoming album. Momentum lagged, since few know the South Carolina native outside of the 1992 collaboration with Carey and he didn't even try to make nice by removing the I'm-so-cool sunglasses. 

The other downside was a videotaped skit of a quartet of catty women dissing Carey in a washroom about her emotional problems and possibly fake boobs and legs. That was overkill for someone who's shaken off the naysayers to come within three songs of the Beatles No. 1 hits record. And let's face it — she didn't have such a substantial bosom in her 1990 debut.

But overall, Carey is a delight. 

She is a bit quirky, and she can't really dance — her tendency is to preen and prance — but she sings her ass off and is a whole lot of fun to watch. And she really does try to connect with her fans, even performing two songs on a ministage in their midst.
Costume changes were well down from the eight on her 2000 tour and the healthy looking, no skinny Mimi has toned down the skank. In fact, it was dancehall reggae opener Sean Paul and his sexy frenetic dancers who pushed the boundaries of decency last night.
Source: The Star (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 14th.

Few have fallen as fast or from such a height as Mariah Carey, who went from the top-selling female artist of the '90s to fodder for Leno and Letterman in roughly a year. It's not without a certain amount of karmic coincidence that her album Glitter, drawn from the universally panned film of the same name, was released on Sept. 11, 2001. Ouch. 

That bad timing was only the beginning of the bad times for Carey, and the first few years of the new millennium were famously unkind to the 36-year-old girl with the glass-shattering pipes. But Mariah's now on the comeback trail, and given the roars and screams coming from the packed ACC concert bowl last night for the Toronto stop of the Adventures of Mimi tour, fans old and new are still here to welcome her. 

First the good news: Carey's still got THAT VOICE. After hearing hundreds of American Idol rejects emulate her show-offy high-register warbling, one would think the source material would now be poison to the ears. Not so. Carey can still show those wannabe punks how it's done. Bow down to your queen. 

Now, the bad news. It wouldn't be a Mariah Carey concert if it wasn't an exercise in excess, but too often Carey was overwhelmed by her band, her back-up singers and the two-tiered stage with its lighted staircases, wind and fog machines and the giant Mimi sign lowered from the rafters. Her voice may be huge, but her presence was at times disappointingly small. 

After an opening video which expressed the profoundly original sentiment that life can be like a roller-coaster, Carey emerged from a hole in the stage, dressed in a black bikini, flowing cape and stilettos, to the strains of It's Like That. Yes, it certainly is. 

That segued into Heartbreaker and then Dreamlover, giving Carey the first (but by no means last) opportunity to bust out her trademark ear-tickling squeal. But while the voice is still there, Carey could use a lesson or two in how to pace a live show. Yeah, we expect the costume changes, but is there no way to do it that doesn't involve killing the momentum? The DJ interludes were fine and certainly crowd-pleasing, but the video skit and other filler should be chucked. 

And stopping Vision Of Love a couple of lines in to tell the tech guys about a problem with the stage smacked of old school diva-tude. "There's a hole in the stage right here, just about the size of a stiletto heel!" said Carey, a smile on her face but not in her voice. How she noticed it with all the distracted fiddling she was doing with her earpiece is a wonder. 

But the woman who has sold more albums than the Beatles doesn't get where she is by disappointing her fans. Her very next song, Fly Like A Bird, was a testament to what her voice can do, and I'll Be There, a duet with Trey Lorenz (who then took the stage solo while Mariah went off to don her third costume in 45 minutes) was deliciously sweet. 

Sliding back and forth between the old (Hero, Honey) and the new (Don't Forget About Us, We Belong Together), Carey cherry-picked from her bulging catalogue of monster hits for the concert's 90-plus minutes. 

At one point she took to a mini-stage smack-dab in the centre of the bowl to do Fantasy and Always Be My Baby, much to the crowd's delight. And during Make It Happen, a full 32-person gospel choir backed her up. Hallelujah!

But overall, the show had too many rough edges, too much of the band in the sound mix and too many non-Mariah distractions. It's nice to see you back, Your Royal Mimi-ness. But next time you visit, could you please travel a little lighter? 

Opening act Sean Paul, enthusiastically professing equal love for the T-dot and the ladies (and, presumably, the T-dot's ladies), got the crowd on its feet early with his sweaty, freaky dancehall reggae beats. Backed by a small army of musicians, DJs and athletic, bootylicious dancers, Paul thumped through the likes of I'm Still In Love With You, Temperature and Get Busy. And no costume changes required. 
Source: TorontoSun (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 14th.

Date: Monday, August 7, 2006
Venue: St. Pete's Times Forum - Tampa, FL - Live Nation
Gross: $714.455
Attendance/Capacity of Building: 13.354 / 13.542
Sellout %: 98.6%
Ticket Price Range: $19.50 - $125.00

Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Venue: Philips Arena - Atlanta, GA - Live Nation
Gross: $660,595
Attendance/Capacity of Building: 11.226 / 13.288
Sellout %: 84.5%
Ticket Price Range: $19.50 - $129.00

Thanks to Chris for the infos
Posted on August the 11th.

Carey has had her ups and downs, as an extended video metaphor involving a roller coaster reminded us. But she’s back on top now, having had the best-selling album of 2005 — “The Emancipation of Mimi” — with the help of Atlanta songwriter/producer Jermaine Dupri.

Dupri appeared onstage multiple times Wednesday night — he came out before Carey to get the crowd pumped up, joined her for a run through “Shake It Off” and shared the stage with Da Brat during a lull in the action. Dupri is a sparkplug of a man, an instant jolt of energy, and Carey thanked him profusely throughout the night.

The show had some disjointed moments and questionable fashion decisions, but Carey was warm and gracious and generally in good voice — she cheesed it up with fans, hit her famous high notes and seemed pleased to be there.

She began the show wearing a spangly black bra and matching boy-shorts, accessorizing with a cape. Later she wore a yellow dress with a deep slit. Her hair fell in waves down her back. Her midriff was well-ventilated.

Carey sometimes seemed unsure whether she was supposed to be onstage or off. And there was a clumsy moment about halfway through the show in which she started “Always Be My Baby,” stopped to sing a bit of “Your Girl,” then went back into “Baby.” But moments like these were kind of endearing — they revealed Carey to be human, as opposed to a robotic diva. 

Among other songs, she sang “Hero,” “We Belong Together,” “Dreamlover,” “My All” and “I’ll Be There.” And if some of the show’s most exciting moments came from a DJ spinning tracks by local rappers D4L, Young Jeezy and Young Joc, well, this is Atlanta — what do you expect?
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (All rights reserved)
Click here to access the newspaper's picture gallery
Heroes note: They seem to praise more JD than Mariah.... whatever 
Posted on August the 10th.

- Atlanta after party: additional infos
A few days ago I posted infos about the official Atlanta after party, here's some more info. The official record company after party is setted up by local gay party promoters Ovah Productions, who host a benefit for Mariah's Fresh Air Fund after the show.  The party will now take place at "Halo Lounge", 817 West Peachtree St NW , Phone: 001 404 962 7333 instead of at the private estate of Dale Gardner.
The entry is $20 US.  The party will be hosted by DJ J-Luv and DJ Dr. Katz
It's not known for sure if Mariah will stop by after the concert, but hey,  if you have nothing better to do, you can give it a try and enjoy a party with your friends.
Source for the info: Mike from Halo Lounge

- Atlanta: Win with Q100 today!!!!!
Qualify with a pair of tickets to see Mariah Carey this Wednesday at Philips arena and to win an Autographed Ipod loaded with the entire Mariah Catalog! 
from 3pm to 6pm with Dylan
Adam Bomb from the Bomb Box makes you win tickets too and will be at the Mariah's Show tomorrow 6p-11p during The Night Show. 
Posted on August the 8th.

Can someone please tell us why in the hot crispy hell DJ Clue, who's the Dee jay/hype man on the tour, was about 5 mins slow to do everything. Look at your cue sheet DJ Clue! After all this time he's still shouting that same tired line: " Dee jay clue, World Famous , Desert Storm!" I hope Randy Jackson, who is the tour director for the Adventures of Mimi, sat all of these industry veterans down and had one of those American Idol style pow wows with them. 

We imagine it went something like this, "Mimi dawg...What happened? You didn't give it your best? The crew just wasn't prepared tonight. We don't want fans demanding a refund especially considering Madonna killed two shows last weekend and Shakira's up next?" That's the way we imagine it anyway. Don't forget about us Mimi as you make your way to your next concert destination. 
Source: Miamist (All rights reserved)
Click on the link above to post your comments, thanks 
Posted on August the 7th.

It could have been first-show jitters, but on Saturday night, the singer seemed preoccupied at the start of the concert — as if she forgot that the reason her fans had gathered (some from as far as Portugal and Peru) was to hear her sing, not to see how many outfits she could squeeze into. Carey's backup singers and dancers carried on while she changed, DJ Clue tried to keep the momentum going, and Spike Lee (via his mini Mimi movies about all the rumors and gossip the singer is always facing) tried to distract from the fact that for chunks of the two-hour show, Mariah was onscreen, but not onstage.

Perhaps her fashion-minded fans didn't mind — after all, Carey did show off a lot of skin, wearing a black bikini with a cape, two different gowns with exposed midriffs, and a metallic red burlesque number that lent itself to lots of straddling poses behind a straight-back chair during "Breakdown". But it wasn't just Carey's cutout gowns that had something missing — being offstage for 10 minutes at a stretch meant the set list also got the cutout treatment, reducing several songs to snippets.

On a duet with her backup singer and fan favorite Trey Lorenz, she didn't have time to sing the entire "One Sweet Day" with him so they started the song at the bridge. And though Carey claims "I Know What You Want" — her hit with opening act Busta Rhymes — she didn't seem to know that the crowd wanted was to see them perform the song together. Busta had included the song in his set, exhorting the ladies to sing Carey's part, and teased that he'd be back later. But when it was Carey's turn onstage, she opted to have the rapper "appear" via the music video they shot together in 2003. Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard also participated in much the same manner during "Heartbreaker," "It's Like That," and "Fantasy," which was more understandable — especially in the case of ODB, who we hope is in rapper's heaven — but Busta?

Carey was clued in that her fans wanted to hear a lot of inspirational numbers, so she packed the set with "Make It Happen," "Fly Like a Bird" (which came with a backing choir), and "Hero," which she said wasn't planned, but so many people had told her it had "changed their lives," that she "can't do a show without it." Those are all big numbers, and no one sings it better than Mariah — she hit all the high C notes with ease — but it was when she brought the show down a notch halfway through the set that she seemed happiest.

Standing on a platform in the middle of the floor seats, Carey was able to reach out to the fans and they to her. One girl even threw her purse to Carey as an offering — whatever happened to the days of bras and roses? As if in exchange, Carey tossed her sunglasses out to the sea of grabbing hands. "I'm in the middle of the people," she said, amazed, as if to herself. Though "Don't Forget About Us" and "Always Be My Baby" are meant to be love songs, she sang them as if they were love letters to her fans, sending her dancers away so it would be just her and her adoring public for a moment. "We didn't really rehearse this," she apologized, but having a spontaneous moment was exactly what she needed to get back on track.

While all the glitz and glamour of the lights, the dancers, the video screens, the costumes, and the confetti are what we expect from a diva of Carey's stature, it's something far less extravagant that her fans wanted — all they could talk about while filing in and out of the venue were the songs. It sounds simple enough, but Carey doesn't let it be simple — not when she can make holding a note, as she did in the encore of "We Belong Together," a major accomplishment. Clutching herself tight as if she could bottle it up inside somehow before she had to ultimately let go, she found her release, her purpose. "I didn't make it easy," she said, after letting the last strain fall away. And if it were easy, no one would be in awe that despite everything else — first-night glitches, gossip and all — she nailed it.
Source: MTV (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 7th.

Carey's 2005 "The Emancipation of Mimi" was a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum chart-topper through which she reclaimed her career while displaying a level of authority that had eluded her in recent years.
Yet onstage Saturday night during the first show of her new concert tour at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, her message to fans seemed to have almost nothing do with "emancipation" or "strength" or "growth" -- or any of the token buzzwords associated with a woman who has recently broken free from whatever it was that was keeping her down.
Rather, this is a show about stripper poles and dangerously high stilettos, hot pants and hair extensions -- all of it thrust onstage in a way that says, "Unless you're naked and grinding up against something, you're nothing."
And to look at the many female fans on hand (young teens to roughly early-30s), also spilling out of their lingerie, shiny gold bikini tops and micro-minis, it seems this is a notion that some women clearly want reinforced by a superstar.
When the show finally began, about an hour late at 10 p.m., there were rappers and dancers, moving staircases, blinding lights, an audio/high-def-video assault, several incoherent short films and a DJ -- all heaped on top of an essentially standard diva extravaganza (i.e., sing song, change outfit).

Those who unwittingly came for an evening of innocuous pop quickly realized that they have not been keeping up with the times. That Mariah -- the one who sang such hopeful songs as "Vision of Love," "Emotions" and "One Sweet Day" -- disappeared a long time ago.
Still, there were glimpses of that performer during such confections as "Dreamlover," "Heartbreaker" and "Fantasy" -- and also during a stellar cover of the 1970 Jackson 5 hit "I'll Be There," a hit for Carey in 1992.
With her wide-ranging vocal ability, Carey, now 36, certainly could have taken the standard pop singer route -- aging up to adult contemporary status, then following Celine Dion over to Vegas. Instead, she's won praise for becoming a singer who mixes it up on songs such as "We Belong Together" and "Say Somethin"' with freestyle producers and rappers like Snoop Dogg.
It works for her and the fans who adore her. Let's just hope all those 15-year-olds remembered to change clothes before they got back home. 
Source: Yahoo!Music Australia (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 7th.

The back-from-the-brink storyline has become a part of the Mariah show, no less than the well-received music on her latest album, The Emancipation of Mimi. Carey, 36, acknowledged as much on Saturday at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami, opening night of a tour dubbed "The Adventures of Mimi." Between songs, Carey starred in a video sketch in which a group of catty clubgoers spots her at another table and, not quite out of earshot, dredges up the tabloid details of the last few years. 

The newly emancipated Carey declines to take the bait. But she made a better case for her recovery by singing. Live performance has not always flattered the best-selling female artist of the 1990s. Her rambling, borderline bizarre concert at this same venue six years ago was, in hindsight, a warmup to her troubles. For all the arena-shaking power of her voice, Carey has often seemed oblivious to the basics of timing and song choice.

Saturday's show wasn't entirely free of those tendencies. Carey didn't come on until almost 10 p.m., nearly an hour after a lively opening set by rap star Busta Rhymes. But she sang robustly for a capacity crowd, worked well with her eight-piece band and chose most of her material smartly. She opened with an upbeat trio of hip-hop-flavored songs, It's Like That and remixes of Heartbreaker and Dreamlover. 

The rap cameos on Heartbreaker -- from Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Da Brat -- were in the form of video footage. Carey, her band and her production crew had no trouble integrating these pre-recorded audiovisual tracks into the live mix. 

The show's biggest surprise was an appearance by r&b singer Trey Lorenz, Carey's original duet partner on a 1992 cover of the Jackson 5's I'll Be There. That hit recording came from a seven-song EP, MTV Unplugged, one of the brights spots in Carey's thin concert history. Carey and Lorenz sang it again on Saturday, not quite as vibrantly as they had 14 years ago, but still with a likeable warmth. Lorenz joined the back-up singers for one of the concert's best moments, a soaring version of the Mimi album's jazz- and gospel-tinged closer, Fly Like a Bird.

The only obvious stumble came late: Make It Happen, a motivational song, was oddly low-key and not the rousing pre-encore finish it was intended to be. But the comeback single We Belong Together made for a strong and nicely symbolic encore.
Source: Sun Sentinel (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 7th.

But Carey never let choreography get in the way of what her body was there for: to help her sing in ways that have, as she said with a modest shrug near the end of the 90-minute-plus concert, "changed people's lives." No one works as hard to balance inspiration and flash as Carey, who started her career selling the ageless appeal of pure vocal prowess only to sustain it by turning herself into a trend-savvy hip-hop home girl. This new production — entitled "The Adventures of Mimi," in reference to her multiplatinum 2005 album, "The Emancipation of Mimi" — seeks to meld the uplifting Mariah and the modish one by surrounding a traditional prima donna's turn with the accouterments of urban music. There were acrobatic dancers; video clips of rappers with whom Carey has collaborated, such as Jay-Z and the late ODB; and references to milestones in her transformation from girl next door to hot mama, including the sailor suits of her 1997 video for "Honey" and the video catfights of her "Heartbreaker" era (the clips now featured assert she's grown beyond all that). Her mixmaster, the eminent DJ Clue, was the night's most prominently featured musician. In the end, though, flowing gowns and sequins won out over booty shorts, which was wise, since it's the warmth she brings to awe-inspiring glamour that makes Carey's fans love her.

From the moment she entered in a black bikini with boy-cut bottom and a chiffon cape, offering up her trademark high notes and striking poses with her masked male dancers, Carey treated the evening like a qualifying round that she was determined to win. Preoccupied with the inevitable glitches of a fledgling tour, she revealed her emotions through a running patter that could have seemed neurotic but actually served to create intimacy within an otherwise dauntingly big-scale event. It's an old showbiz trick to interrupt major production numbers with asides that humanize the goings-on, and whether that or basic nerves motivated Carey's asides, it worked: When she did stumble, as on the unusually challenging mix of big dance moves and rapid-fire vocalizing during the reggae-inflected "Shake It Out," it made the show feel alive, not unprofessional.

Some elements will surely be tightened up as the tour commences toward the West, where it concludes in October. DJ Clue's expert spinning got the party-hearty Miami crowd hopping during costume changes, but the frequency of these intermissions affected the night's pacing. The dancers haven't quite figured out how to assert themselves within a show inevitably ruled by Carey's voice; unlike most of today's concert spectacles, this one was best when the interplay was limited to the singer and her sympathetic backing band (Carey's musical director, incidentally, is that singer's champion, "American Idol's" Randy Jackson). Especially satisfying were the duets Carey shared with backing vocalist Trey Lorenz; when these longtime singing partners traded high notes on the ballads "I'll Be There" and "One Sweet Day," Carey really eased into her performance. She was happiest simply expressing her gifts and, in doing so, allowing her fans to consider their own perhaps unemancipated potential.

It's a function singers have served at least since the coloratura came into style in opera — the female voice, reaching far beyond the confines of ordinary speech, carries the listener beyond the humdrum of her daily imaginings. As Carey put it in the song she described as the most personal on her latest album, great singing makes the soul "Fly Like a Bird." Carey's Miami audience, a wide-ranging mix including grade-schoolers with their parents, South Beach clubbers and pregnant women with husbands in tow, grooved to DJ Clue's beats, but they really got excited on the midtempo numbers whose climaxes gave Carey room to soar. When Carey moved to a small stage mid-arena, she got the crowd climbing on seats, not to check out her "Charlie's Angels" sunglasses but to cheer her holding one last note on the poignant "Don't Forget About Us" until it seemed like she would break.

She never broke, no matter how fretfully she muttered about not being able to hear the band or apologized for taking sips of water. Like the silver-screen queens she admires, Carey's not just a femme fatale but also a trouper, and her years of delivering hits, even with a midcareer dip, have resulted in hard-won consistency. On this anxious night, she proved herself a solid talent and was best when she allowed herself the pleasure of her own strengths.

Busta Rhymes, one notable rapper with whom Carey once dueted, opened the show with a strong, funny set that betrayed not a bead of worried sweat. Delivered with the assistance of a sparse crew (one other MC and a DJ), the voluble Mr. Rhymes flirted obscenely with women in the front rows, pulled out hits from his long career and relentlessly plugged his new album, "The Big Bang." It's too bad Carey didn't invite Rhymes to share in her set's rendition of "Give It to Me," the song they recorded together; it could have made for another fun, relaxed moment. But perhaps the rapper had found and fled with another female friend by that point.
Source: Los Angeles Times (All rights reserved)
Posted on August the 7th.